House 2107: Tape Up the Wombat!
by Userunfriendly
Summary: This is a miniseries about House, MD. in the future. Warning, excessive and hysterically funny Wombat Torture. Enjoy. Now complete!
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: 

I no own, so you no sue! 

The Litigation sensation that's sweeping the nation! 

This is a Science Fiction/Comedy "House" story set in the future. Yes, there will be Wombat torture. Yes, I am nutty. Yes, you should be afraid.

--------------------------------------------

**Chapter One: Meeting**

Medicine in 2107 was...stagnant. Cancer had been cured, and the mandatory genetic counseling and screening required by most first world countries meant genetic diseases like Huntington was virtually extinct. A.I.D.S was just some boring facts in history books, and while the fields of genetic research was always on the cutting edge, attracting the finest and brightest minds, almost all the other specialties in medicine had experienced a major slump in interest, and funding. Just about the only field that still excited medical students, trying to decide what to do with their lives, was in the highly specialized fields of space medicine.

Dr. Robert Chase sat on his comfortable chair, reflecting on universal constants. Elevators sucked. Even Spacevators sucked. Why do they always have that annoying, and really boring Muzak?

"It's psychological, you know." said Dr. Allison Cameron.

"Huh?" good going, Robert. Act like a total idiot in front of the gorgeous girl you've been eying since you started the trip to N.E.O.S One.

"We're not really in a normal elevator, you know. We're traveling up a thin cable of carbon mono-fiber, accelerating to hundreds of miles per hour, all the way to Near Earth Orbit Station One, into SPACE. The really annoying music fools the mind into believing that we're just stuck here in another boring elevator ride. Helps to keep people from freaking out. Even though they still do. All the attendants have pneumatic syringes full of sedatives. And instead of a window, we get these HD screens showing the Kenyan National park, Brazilian Rain forests, and the Grand Canyon. All pictures of the earth, all pictures of the ground. They used to have windows, until they started ferrying up regular people, instead of astronauts. They ended up having to give everyone tranquilizers. So now they have video games, really boring music, and viewers on every chair, so people can veg out during the ride." She tapped the virtual reality glasses attached to the chair she occupied, which offered an unusually large selection of movies and games, for something offered free to every passenger.

"And your way of coping is to talk, right?" asked Robert with that trademark boyish grin of his.

"Right. Doctor Allison Cameron." she held out her hand.

"Doctor Robert Chase." Robert was tempted to kiss the hand instead of shaking it, but judged it was too soon.

"Joining the medical staff?"

"Yep, I got accepted by..."

"Doctor Gregory House. So you're the new intensivist?"

"Yep. How is he? Is he as bad as everyone says he is?"

"Worse. You know how they say his bark is worse than his bite? Well, his bark is so bad, that no one has ever been brave enough to annoy him enough to be bitten. But he is brilliant, he is...a total genius. I've learned more with him in my first year than...my entire five years in med school! And he seems to know everything..."

After the first few minutes, Robert Chase crossed Dr. Allison Cameron off his list. She was obviously highly infatuated with their boss, Dr. Gregory House, and the chances of getting her into his bed was non-existent. He still had hopes. He was determined to try out those moves he'd read about in the "NASA Sutra." He had downloaded the book years ago, back when he was still a med student, and after reading the first line, he knew he had to get to Space someday.

"Having sex in microgravity can be tricky. You have to remember Newton's Third Law of Motion, 'For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.' Capacious use of Velcro is highly recommended."

Most of NEOS One was under spin, up to half earth gravity in some places, but there were still some areas with no spin. And one constant in every hospital, even the ones in space were pretty nurses.

"Changeover in one minute. Changeover in one minute. Everyone please fasten your seatbelts, and secure any loose items" announced the intercom.

"You know what Changeover is, right?"

"Yeah, our seats will move to the ceiling, as we deaccelerate."

"It kinda makes a few people freak out. And 'cause we're doctors, the attendents will expect help from us if someone gets the heeby-geebys. I can't really help with restraining anyone if they're violent, but I'm good with a tranquilizer gun." Cameron half pulled out a small styrette out of her vest pocket, and showed it to Chase. The quarter of earth's gravity experienced by the passengers was solely due to the fact that their capsule was continuously accelerating on its way to earth orbit. At the half way mark, the capsule started to deaccelerate, which meant that up was now down, and the seats moved to the ceiling. During Changeover, people did freak out, during the brief period of weightlessness, and someone always forgot their space-sickness medication.

Surprisingly, no one hurled their lunches, or got violent on this trip. Some people just didn't belong in space. Everyone settled back to relax during the last four hours of the trip. Cameron was always nervous during the acceleration phase, but once Changeover happened, she relaxed. She pulled her Omni out of her pocket, and started to catch up on all the emails she had gotten during her mandatory three weeks in Earth. Low gravity meant calcium loss, and all space personnel were required to spend three weeks out of every six months in full Earth gravity, along with their dietary supplements they all took religiously. She had spent her time as usual with her large family, and it was a good thing that her's and Greg's Groundhog's Days didn't match, or they'd never get out of bed. As it was, she missed Greg terribly, and undoubtedly Foreman, Wilson and Cuddy were already going out of their minds while House was coping with the absence of his girlfriend.

Chase noticed that Cameron was no longer interested in conversation, and he pulled his Omni out of his pocket to catch up on his paper work. It was no good fretting about his new boss, things will take care of themselves.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter The Second: Impatient Lovers**

"House, stop humming 'A Spacesuit Built for Two'!" said Lisa Cuddy. It had been a hard three weeks while Allison Cameron was down dirtside. As much as Cuddy appreciated Allison Cameron's influence with the cranky doctor, when said influence was hundreds of thousands of miles away, House took out his irritation at missing Cameron on everyone else. But rules applied to everyone, even the rules that House had set in place himself. It had been House who had proven to the International Space Administration that the previous protocol, two weeks once a year was not effective in preventing calcium loss due to low gravity.

Space Medicine had been scoffed at for years, its harshest critics groundside doctors who claimed that there weren't significant differences between medicine practiced on Earth as opposed to medicine in the orbital habitats, or on the colonies on Luna and Mars. House had changed that, citing in his groundbreaking papers the unusual and difficult conditions beyond the atmosphere, and how he and his staff had overcome those obstacles. But it wasn't until he had proven that environmental factors were completely different in Space than on Earth that doctors had sat up and taken notice. For example, multi-organ replacement surgery was a lot easier to do up in NEOS One than dirtside. You didn't have to worry about organ displacement, as the artificial organs were implanted, due to the lower gravity. No one had understood that alpha ray poisoning was radically different from gamma ray exposure, or other well-understood forms of radiation poisoning, before House had written about it. Because Earth's magnetosphere protected its inhabitants from solar wind, no one had ever seen serious cases of alpha ray poisoning on Earth. (Solar wind was composed largely of energetic ionized helium nuclei, or alpha rays.) Finally, the most obvious change from Earth medicine was the huge Geriatrics Department in NEOS One, and the other orbital habitats. Low gravity meant that people lived longer. The rich and aged of Earth's teeming masses migrated to Space, settling down either near Earth or on the Moon. It was an extremely good thing that Cuddy managed to land Dr. James Wilson, Geriatrics Specialist. His boyish good looks and charm kept their elderly but very rich and influential patients happy.

"My, oh my, Dr. Cuddy, may I say that the twins look especially firm and perky today?" replied House.

"It's called low gravity, House. You really missed her didn't you? 'Cause that comment sucked. Nothing about my 'Olympus Mons'? Nothing about how the gravitational gradient generated by my breasts are causing your eyeballs to fall toward them? Lame, House." Snarked Cuddy. ( Olympus Mons is the largest mountain in the solar system.)

"Why would I say such things, Dr. Cuddy? Everyone knows I'm the soul of discretion and a consummate gentleman. Besides, you just said them for me." Smirked House.

Cuddy bit her cheek firmly. In just a few minutes, Cameron's capsule would be here, and House wouldn't be nearly as unbearable as he had been for the past few weeks. When Cameron wasn't here, House's painkiller consumption went up. He was now at twice his normal dosage of two pills a day. Nopain wasn't addictive, or even a narcotic like old-fashioned drugs, for example vicodin, or oxycodon. But there was a definite psychological component to House's chronic pain, which only Cameron seemed to be able to help with. Cuddy had once wondered at about how bad House would have been if he didn't work at NEOS One. What if he was working on Earth?! His leg pain would have been almost unbearable, each step agony. NEOS One's quarter G allowed him to almost move around freely, without putting much weight on his damaged leg. But soon Cameron would be back, and House would be back to his normal mean, nasty, sarcastic, and grouchy self. Thank God!

"DING!" It was quite funny that a Spacevator traveling from the surface of the Earth to ORBIT would announce itself with a prosaic "Ding!" as if it was just another elevator. But who cared? House was only concerned about the passengers.

"GREG!!!" Shouted Allison Cameron as she leapt out of Gateway, the disembarkation checkpoint where passengers from Earth went through customs. She jumped the 20 or so feet separating the two of them, (Low gravity, remember?) and landed in House's waiting arms. House fell over backwards, and the couple landed with a "thump" on the carpet.

"Allison, inertia, remember?" House managed to chide her inbetween kisses. Cuddy couldn't help but giggle. Cameron, despite her four years here, still tended to think like a groundhog. Low gravity didn't have a thing to do with inertia. Despite her indecently petite 29 pounds, a fact that she reveled in every time she weighed herself, Lisa still had the inertial mass of 116 pounds, something that Allison STILL forgot. Oh well, the two were good for each other, and despite a courtship that was filled with traumatic scenes (to the hospital staff) and explosive temper tantrums by both parties, Cameron had finally managed to seduce House.

"Um…Dr. House?" the young, blond Australian doctor stepped forward, to introduce himself. So not getting any from Allison Cameron.

"Never mind the two of them, Dr. Chase? I'm Lisa Cuddy, Administrator of NEOS One's Medical Center." Cuddy stepped up and shook the young doctor's hand. As embarrassing the two of them could be, she knew she was lucky to have Greg House and to a lesser extent Allison Cameron in her staff, and most of the time they were worth the aggravation.

"This is Dr. Foreman, your colleague, and of course you've met Dr. Cameron, who's also on the team. And the scruffy old man on the floor getting his tonsil's checked is Greg House." She quickly gave House a sharp kick in the side, and the highly public make out session, which to be fair just caused the station staff watching to grin foolishly, finally ended. House stood, helping Cameron get up also, and looked at his new hire.

"Chase?" asked House.

"Robert Chase, Intensivist, Dr. House."

"Ah yes, Dr. Wombat, I presume?"

"That's Chase!"

"Toe-mato, Tomato. Foreman, show Wombat the digs. Allison and I have to catch up. See ya!" House proceeded to drag a giggling Allison Cameron off toward the Residential Ring. (NEOS One was divided into a series of rings, spun to provide gravity for the inhabitants. The Residential Ring was two rings down from the Medical Center.)

Robert Chase gaped at the departing couple.

"Just ignore it, those two are…embarrassing enough. Eric Foreman, Neurologist." Dr. Chase automatically shook his hand, his attention still on the highly inappropriate behavior just displayed publicly by his two…colleagues?

"Wait a minute, did Dr. House just say that Dr. Cameron works with us?"

"Yeah, we all work in the Astro-Medicine department."

"But they're…dating?"

"Shacked up. Long story, short version, she fell in love with House at her interview, he resisted her for about three years, they finally started dating about four months ago."

"He RESISTED for three years? House is crazy!"

"Yeah, House is crazy. Ask Wilson about it. That's Dr. Wilson, House's best friend. Come on, I'll show you where we work. Dr. Cuddy?"

"Go ahead." Cuddy shook her head. House was House. How he could just publicly make out with Cameron, in front of the whole staff of Gateway, and just saunter off with his girlfriend in tow was beyond understanding. The sheer brazen effrontery of the man! Well, it wasn't like she was going to get any work done out of the two of them today anyway. It was almost 1500, so House would have quit work soon anyhow. They didn't have major cases right now; so giving them a bit of time off would be worth it in staff morale tomorrow.

Dr. Foreman led the younger Robert Chase into the Med Center. At least House wouldn't be as nasty tomorrow. He was glad that Cameron was back, and so were the rest of the staff.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter The Third: Chocolates!**

House and Cameron entered their quarters, and House firmly locked the door. They were immediately at each other like...a Narn on a Centauri. (After their first real date, they had gone back to her quarters and they discovered their mutual fondness for late twentieth century science fiction television shows, especially "Babylon 5".) After they had ripped each other's clothes off, House grabbed Cameron's wrists (Not without a certain regret, since her hands were doing SUCH delightful things.) and sat her down on their bed.

"Sex later, food first." said House with a truly EVIL smirk.

"Greg, I already ate on the trip up!" Cameron couldn't wait to get her hands, her lips, and other parts of her anatomy on House. She was a woman, dammit, and she had NEEDS!

"I'm sorry, Dr. Cameron, but I insist that we continue the experiments we were doing before you rudely left."

Cameron's smile threatened to split her head in two. THOSE experiments, hey? Boy, oh boy oh boy!

"I'm afraid so, Dr. Cameron. We are still going to have to determine the limits of your pleasure threshold." House pulls out of a drawer a small metal tray, holding seven small ovals wrapped in plain, white confectioner's paper. House puts the tray down on the bed, then Cameron wriggled in excitement, her eyes riveted on those small candies? Those couldn't be...no way! They just couldn't be...

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to restrain you, Dr. Cameron. I've been made aware of the research involving female physiological responses the first time they consume free fall chocolate, and for my own personal safety, I am going to have to take steps." House pretended to ignore Cameron's throaty gasp of pure surprise and pleasure, even as his toes uncontentiously curled in response. House pulled out several silk kerchiefs, and gestured for Cameron to hold out her wrists.

"Greg! How could you afford them? They're like a thousand a gram!" Cameron's eyes were as wide as saucers as House finished binding her wrists, then he unwrapped the first oval. Stamped on the dark, rich brown chocholate was the unmistakable logo, "Godiva Astras". House slowly brought up his hand, and Cameron closed her eyes in sheer sensual bliss as the impossibly delicious morsel was brought to her quivering lips. The first tiny nibble was...INDESCRIBABLE!!! Terrestrial isomers and lipids have a left handed twist, but at the Godiva Manufacturing Facility, on NEOS Three, special laser depolarizers that only worked in zero-gravity flipped them, producing tastes that were literally "out of this world". Only about a hundred pounds were made annually, and orders were made years in advance. They were so utterly delicious, impossibly sensual, and unbelievably...GOOD! It may be a slight exaggeration that a serious chocolate lover could be brought to her "happy place" by simply consuming them, but it was only a SLIGHT exaggeration. House and Cameron were sitting crosslegged, facing each other, and as Cameron kept taking small nibbles of her treat, House leaned forward and took small nibbles of HIS treat. After Cameron finished her first confection, she proceeded to lick House's fingers, still covered in melted chocolate, while House proceeded to lick her...well you know!

For the next few hours, heights of pleasure were reached while Cameron ate her chocolates. In fact, certain pleasures involved them USING chocolates, and the two spent doctors lay back in bed, wrapped in that utterly delicious languor and pleasurable weariness that came from continuous, no-stop experiments in exploring each other's pleasure threshold.

"Oh my god...the hands of a musician, AND a surgeon...and other parts of you are no slouches either...dear god, I'm sore..."

"You were a very cooperative experimental subject, Dr. Cameron."

"I'm very glad to hear that, Dr. House." said Cameron with a giggle.

"I missed you, Allison." whispered House.

"Me too. Love you."

"I love you, Allison."

"Um...Greg, I'm starved."

"Hmmm...I wonder why?"

"Gee, I wonder. Let's take a shower, and go to the cafeteria."

House helped Cameron into the shower. She had not been kidding about being sore. They luxuriated in the high pressure spray, and got dressed. Just as Cameron was putting on her blouse, their intercom buzzed.

"Go away."

"HOUSE!!! WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY!!! GET TO OPERATIONS RIGHT AWAY!!!" shrieked Lisa Cuddy.

The two doctors raced out their quarters, in the bounding leaps of people who have acclimated to low gravity environments.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter The Fourth: Impact!**

"So over here is the Department of Space Medicine. This is where we spend most of the time coming up with ways to diagnose and treat all the oddball cases we get." Foreman showed the small, cluttered area. Space was at a premium in...Space. D'uh!

Chase looked around at the small area, barely larger than a terrestrial office.

"I guess you learn to move carefully around here."

"Yeah. Of course, there's always House. He's spent more time here than any of us, but still refuses to be considerate to other people. Get used to pulling in legs and arms when he's around. The only person he actually cares about are his friend Wilson, and Cameron, of course."

"What's the story about them?"

"Well, about a year after she came on board, they started dating...the official story we have in front of Cuddy is that they've been together for four months, but they've kinda been quietly dating for a lot longer. They just made it public four months ago, 'cause Cameron's contract is almost up, and she's going to be assistant department head of Immunology. So Cuddy doesn't have to worry about her working for House."

"Wow...old guy like him and her?" Chase was still astonished.

"Yep, but it's something genuine. I mean, they're like...gangbusters when they fight, she stands up to him, and really asserts herself. She's a hell of a nice girl though. As trite as it sounds, they've got the real deal. And Cuddy will space anyone who tries to mess up those two, cause House is incredibly brilliant, and his reputation helps the hospital in all sorts of ways."

"Okay, okay, I get the hint."

"What do you want to see next?"

"I've heard about the Nograv Lab..."

"Yeah, we're real proud of that one. You don't suffer from vertigo or freefallsickness, right?" Foreman started to walk to the lifts that led to the highly publicized and newly installed research module.

"Nope, tested and got my implant."

"Good, 'cause some people...are just not meant for Space."

"Yeah."

"By the way, Chase, where's your emergency kit?"

"What?"

"Your kit." Foreman points to a lunchbox sized pouch attached to his belt.

"Emergency kit?" repeated Chase, sounding like a moron. Way to go, Robert.

"Contains my soft suit, hull patch kit, and emergency oxygen supply. You have to have one. All station personnel have to wear their kit at all times. How come you weren't issued one?"

"Well, my contract was to temporarily replace Dr. Spencer for a while, then he decided to get married, so I got picked up permanent."

"So Admin messed up. Ok, we'll stop over at Stores later. Since it takes about a day to get you fitted for a soft suit, it'll take about 3 days. Oh well, just avoid going to any of the external modules. They're the ones where you're not safe!" Foreman wriggled his eyebrows. He so loved making the newbies nervous...

"Safe?" squeeked Chase. "Safe from what?" now Chase was feeling a little...closed in, and trying not to think of all the horror stories about Space.

"Gomi. You know what the biggest danger up here is, right?"

"Trash. Oh yeah, Gomi is Japanese for trash. Is it still a problem? I mean I've read about the aerogel armor, and the radar controlled lasers..."

"The aerogel is only good for stuff traveling at high relative velocity. And the lasers are only good for objects larger than...say a ground car. That's why each module has its own pressure doors, that automatically seal in case of a breach."

"How...how...bad is it?"

"Statistically, like getting struck by lightning. Sorry Chase, I couldn't help myself. Sorry man." Foreman held out his hand.

Robert Chase ran through the material he had read about the orbital debris problems that plagued modern space travel. Those cretins back in the late twentieth century and twenty first had happily sent up an estimated 10 million objects into earth orbit. Not to mention all the junk floating around from the manned missions. Each object orbiting the earth at five miles per second, each one capable of catastrophic impact with manned space stations or passenger craft. At five miles a second, a paperclip could take out a tank. Most of the bigger satellites have been recovered, and their raw materials recycled, but there's still tons of stuff out there. All the NEOS stations carried radar controlled free electron laser cannons that vaporized anything above a certain size, on collision course with the station. For smaller objects, the aerogel "clouds" that surrounded each Near Earth Orbit Station provided a certain amount of protection. Aerogel, the lightest, highest volume material ever made by man, made Styrofoam seem denser than lead in comparison. Vast "clouds" of aerogel surrounded each station, making them seem like...Laputa, the fairytale castle in the clouds as written by Jonathan Swift. With a high enough relative velocity, the aerogel clouds would vaporize by friction small objects that made it past the eternally waiting and vigilant laser cannons. (Relative velocity has a very precise definition in orbital mechanics. Everything up there is moving already at high speed, including yourself. Any object that moves in a different vector than yours means that at impact, you're going to have COMBINED velocity consisting of your own vector, plus at least some of vector of the object you've just collided with. Remember the paperclip and the tank?)

Chase shook Foreman's hand, and tried to relax. It sure seemed that it was at best a minor problem, like hitting a winner in some evil lottery, but a small voice inside his head reminded him that people still died of lightning strikes every year. Well, no time to worry about that, he'd just started a new job, with a notoriously difficult and famous/infamous boss, and he still wanted to make a good impression. From the undertones, it seemed like he didn't do anything too unfixable, except eying the bosse's girlfriend...and having a few fantasies about her...having really kinky fantasies about her...he just hoped that the legends were wrong, and Greg House couldn't read people's thoughts. Oh boy.

"And here we are. Our very own Nograv Lab. Not as big as some others, or extensive as the Nograv manufacturing facilities, but our very own. Hey, Carl." Foreman waved to the bored lab tech. The Nograv Lab was Cuddy's pride and joy. Even in orbit, there was no such thing as complete weightlessness. Objects, primarily the bulk of NEOS One itself, created tiny amounts of gravity so minuscule that it could only be measured with sensitive instruments. Hence "microgravity". Now certain things that could only be manufactured in space, like ultra pure alloys, exotic chemicals and free fall chocolate, all were sensitive to even these tiny gravity fields. Nograv facilities used "Forward Compensators" named after the twentieth century science fiction author, Robert L. Forward, who suggested using six spinning high density masses to cancel out the tidal effect present in even microgravity. (Tides are caused by differences in gravitational intensity on an object. On Earth, the oceans closest to the Moon have high tide, the furthest away from the Moon low tide. Some materials are so hard to make that even microscopic tidal effects can ruin a batch.) The Nograv Lab belonging to NEOS One was for the sole purpose of research in Space Medicine.

"Whatcha doing, Carl?"

"Hey, Dr. Foreman, I'm watching Dr. Henderson's experiments in growing cancercells in Nograv."

"Boring, eh Carl?"

"Watching paint dry is high excitement in comparison, Dr. Foreman. Who's the new guy?"

"This is Dr. Chase, joining our team."

"I'm sorry, Dr. Chase." Smirked the lab technician.

"That's all right, I've already survived my first meeting with Dr. House." replied Chase. The tech went back to his instruments, Henderson was a right bastid, if he messed anything up.

"And, as you can see, the best window in the station." Foreman pointed at the large observation windows, at one wall. The view was...spectacular. Even with polarization, to reduce the sun's intensity, the sight of the blue and white Earth, the crystalline stars, and the shimmering, multicolored clouds of aerogel surrounding the stations was...unbearably romantic. Chase had heard from Jack Spencer, the guy he was replacing, that this spot was such a guaranteed panty peeler. Chase didn't care about how the medical journals touted this facility as being the cutting edge of medicine. Such total bull. This was the primo makeout spot, the place to get lucky. Not with Allison Cameron, no, but with an endless succession of pretty nurses and doctors. He so hoped House didn't read minds...

"BANG!!!"

Foreman, Chase and Carl weren't rattled around, or thrown off their feet by the impact. Because the Nograv Lab wasn't spun to provide artificial gravity, they only heard the noise as SOMETHING sheared through the boarding tube that connected the lab to the rest of the station. They did feel the rush of equalizing pressure, and the "SLAM" as the emergency hatches sealed the rupture.

"OH CRAP!"

"What?" asked Chase in panic.

"We're tumbling!" Foreman pointed at the observation window, where they could clearly see the station receding away from them.

"And we're detached from the station!" said Carl with fear in his voice.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Chase is going to Die!**

"What the heck is going on!" House was still zipping up his pants when both he and Allison Cameron rushed into Operations.

"The Nograv lab detached from the rest of the station. Dr. Chase is in there, along with Carl Goodwin and Eric Foreman. Unfortunately, due to a Snafu, Chase doesn't have an emergency kit. And due to another screwup, there are no space rescue bags in the Nograv lab. Orbital Command says that the module is going to re-enter, and in less than half an hour, they're going to vaporize it with their laser cannon. All the Jitneys and tugs are out on the repair job for NEOS Three, except for Jitney Three. Jitney Three doesn't have..." began a frantic and worried Lisa Cuddy.

"...A working docking collar. The Nograv lab doesn't have space rescue bags???!!! Crap! What caused the detach?"

"Rogers thinks that its an old U.S. stealth satellite. Radar didn't pick up anything, and the reports of the collision say it was a big one, and moving at very low velocity. That means it has an orbit that matches ours very closely, and if radar and lidar didn't pick it up, it has to be something...unusual." It has been a space legend for years that the United States had sent up stealth satellites into earth orbit. The U.S. had always denied categorically that it had violated the Near Earth Treaty for Orbital Commerce and Utilization, but no one had ever quite believed it. Since the U.S. had the monopoly on stealth technology for such a long time, they had always been suspected of putting up espionage platforms into orbit with concave facets and radar/lidar defeating coating.

"Why doesn't the Nograv lab have space rescue bags?" repeated House. The deadline was the big worry. Because the Nograv lab massed around 60 metric tons, if it re-entered the earth atmosphere, it could impact on a population area, and kill thousands. Orbital Command, with its huge array of fast cutters and interceptors, not only regulated commerce in orbit, but also used the gigawatt lasers to vaporize any falling debris that endangered the mother planet. Normally this sort of thing wouldn't be a worry. Just shove the Wombat into a space rescue bag, a garbage bag-like piece of silvered reinforced nano-tube fabric. Inside was a small cylinder of oxygen, and it would keep a person alive for up to an hour, plenty of time for most rescues. But without an emergency suit or rescue bag for Chase, he was so screwed. Unless...

"Cuddy! You can't be serious! Chase is going to be blinded, and he's going to almost certainly die!" snarled House.

"What choice do we have, House?" snarled Cuddy back.

"His eyes are going to pop out like champagne corks! Ninety percent of the capillaries in his skin are going to explode, and if the pain doesn't kill him, the clots would! If we pump him full of blood thinners, he's going to bleed out! EVA without suit is going to kill him!" House knew exactly what joining the Vacuum-Breather's Club would mean for Chase. Out of the 200 or so people who have had to EVA without a suit, since the beginning of the Manned Exploration of Space, 192 had died, in horrifying agony, within days of being exposed (however briefly) to death pressure.

"Then come up with something, House!!!" Cuddy screamed. Things like this weren't suppose to happen. This was Near Earth Orbit, as close to Terra Firma as you could get in Space. This was suppose to be safe as it got, not like on Titan, or on the five year Pluto Missions.

"Damn it, Allison, stop crying! You know I hate that, and I'm trying to think." His tone of voice started gruff and cold, but as House finished his sentences, he reached up and laid his hand on Cameron's cheek. He loved this gentle woman, her sympathy for the patients had on more than one occasion goaded him into one of his trademark miraculous treatments, the fear of disappointing her pushing him as a doctor.

"Crap! Why wasn't he issued an emergency kit? Foreman and Carl have their kits, right?" At Cuddy's nod, House really started to think. They didn't have much time, it looked like Chase was probably going to die. If only Chase had his kit! The skin tight soft suit with its selectively permeable fabric kept the skin from rupturing as thirty two pounds per square inch of internal pressure tried to turn your insides out in vacuum. It really wasn't more than a specialized diver's suit, like the ones they used on Earth, but with a lot more technology built into it. Since each suit was built to the wearer's exact body measurements, everyone had to have their own made to order, and updated every six months. In fact...

"Chase! Strip! Carl, Foreman, do you have any space tape in there?" House grabbed the microphone, and he bellowed into it, interrupting the dark thoughts of the three men trapped in the Nograv lab together.

"Yes, Dr. House! What do we do?" asked a frantic and desperate Dr. Foreman. Chase was desperately trying not to sob in the corner.

"We're going to tape up the Wombat." said House with an evil grin.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: We Taped up the Wombat...and he didn't like it.**

"Dr. Grugory Hoose, you totally suck!" slurred Robert Chase.

"Take another shot, Wombat! I'm your doctor, and if you don't take your medicine, that destroys the whole sick people and doctor thing. Hey, Wilson, what's that called again?" Everyone was at "Cloud Nine" the local watering hole for NEOS One. Chase was alive, but not enjoying it at all.

"Whazzis this anyhu?" asked a highly inebriated Chase.

"Moonshine. Vacuum-distilled on the moon. Old Henderson's Rocket Fuel. Chase, House is your doctor, and if he recommends that you drink yourself into a mess, I'd follow his treatment. That's the word you're looking for House, treatment." Wilson nodded sagely. He was such a lightweight. When Wilson got drunk, he tended to get all solemn and pontificating.

"Foreman, old buddy, old pal of mine, whas he coll me Wombat anyway?"

"House called me 'Ghetto Gangsta' for about a year before he started using my name. He called Cameron 'Teddy Bear' for about the same time." Foreman was feeling no pain.

"Hey, I'm right here!"

"So wot? You, you slimy so and so, you put Space Tape allz over me! Look at me!"

"Yeah, I have to admit, a hairless Wombat is not a pretty sight."

"House! Why are you pouring drinks into Dr. Chase?" As she walked into the bar, Dr. Cuddy instantly recognized the impromptu party. She could understand that Chase would want to have a few drinks after the harrowing experience of being stripped naked, and wrapped all over with Space Tape. Foreman actually taped a BEDPAN over his face, after Chase had flushed his lungs with pure oxygen. (He claimed later that it was the only thing he could find, but there were suspicions...) They depressurized the Nograv lab, and EMT in full pressure armor hauled in all three personnel without a fuss. A complete physical later, and everyone was astonished at the lack of any ill effects left from Chase's terrifying and harrowing experience. Then, poor Nurse Meggie and Britany were given the unenviable task of peeling off the Space Tape. Even with several bottles of solvent, at times Britany had to hold Chase down, as Meggie pulled the sticky material off the whimpering Dr. Robert Chase.

"He's such a big wimp. He was crying when Meggie and Britany pulled the tape off. Sissy boy!"

Dr. Cuddy heroically stifled her giggle. Chase did not look happy. The tape in his hair had to be cut off, leaving Chase with tufts of hair sticking out of his involuntary crew cut. It was even worse when they got to his...groin, with a terrified Robert Chase begging the two nurses to be ultra careful with the scissors. The fact that the two nurses couldn't help but be giggling at the situation did not make Chase happy at all...

"Come on, House, women understand. I mean, we've all had bikini wax, and it hurts like hell. Heck, I've screamed outloud many times."

"Um...Dr. Cuddy, I'm afraid the situation is not exactly the same thing. Yep, Dr. Chase now has an involuntary bikini wax, but you're forgetting that men have a slight physiological difference..."

"What?" Now Cuddy was puzzled.

"They pulled off his 'antipodean' hair."

"What?" asked Cuddy and Cameron.

"The tape got stuck in his 'antipodean bum fluff.'"

"WHAT?!"

"They yanked out his butt hair!"

At this Cameron and Cuddy fell over giggling hysterically, and all the men, except House naturally, winced in sympathy. Cuddy pointed at Chase, who was still walking around as if he had sat down on a cactus plant, and Cameron began to laugh uncontrollably.

"You cruel women. Chase, have another shot!"

"Yur jus this great big bloody saddest, thar be wot yous are! Yous suck House!"

"Dr. Chase, you do realize that House saved your life? Every other member of the Vacuum-Breather's Club has died within usually hours after their experience. House, with his brilliant idea, saved you from exploding like...like...a squeezed zit!"

"Oh lord. Give me a drink, Dr. House. Thank you for saving my life." Chase was suddenly sober, as his brain finally caught up with the booze.

"De Nada. Have a drink!"

Everyone had a drink, to celebrate Chase's renewed lease on life, and to depressurize from the stress they had been under for the last few hours. As sobriety fled out the nearest airlock, everyone had a good time. Too good...

(Next Morning)

"Oh dear lord, just kill me now." Chase woke up with the worst hangover in the world. Obviously it had been an extremely bad idea to match Dr. House drink for drink.

"What dog crapped in my mouth?" Asked a stark naked Lisa Cuddy.

"DR. CUDDY!"

"DR. CHASE!!!"

"OH CRAP!" shouted the two of them together.


	7. Epilog

**Chapter 7: Ouch!**

(One Year Later)

"Will Dr. Robert Cuddy report to Dr. Lisa Cuddy's office?" Announced the intercom.

"Lisa, they're doing it again!" Robert Chase was highly annoyed as he walked into the hospital administrator's office.

"Well, Robbie, at least they're not singing 'Mrs. Robinson' anymore."

"Yeah, but I'm getting tired."

"Never mind. Anyway, are you ready for tonight?"

"Why a kilt? I mean, I'm Scottish on my mum's side, but a kilt?"

"Come on, Robbie, its a costume party."

"Oh, all right." Chase gave Dr. Cuddy a lingering kiss, and stalked off. He'd get over his mad soon enough, her little (Well, not so little, thank goodness) Wombat took a lot of ribbing, but she liked that he still stuck around, even after the inevitable teasing when everyone found out about their relationship.

(Later That Night)

"Well, we know who wears the pants in this family!" House snarked, pointing to Cuddy's pantsuit, and Chase's kilt.

"Shut up House! My Scarlett O'Hara dress was ruined!" Cuddy glared at House, it did sound like him to "accidentally" put a gash in her costume just so he could make that joke.

"Dance, Lise?" asked Robert.

"Lead the way. House, this is how a real gentleman does things." smirked Cuddy.

"Um...Lise, remember that thing we were going to try out later? Well, I made arrangements..."

"OK!"

The next day, Robert Chase and Lisa Cuddy reported in sick. They had managed to hurt themselves trying out free fall sex. Naturally, House inevitably found out, and much mocking was done.


End file.
